100 
more than they can control elsewhere. Guilds and societies for 
distributing flowers in schools and tenements are also responsible 
for much damage in this direction. A general appeal sent out 
in 1902 to the numerous branches near New York and Philadel- 
phia asks for flowers and twigs, but gives no advice or warning 
about collecting these. The supply is evidently considered inex- 
haustible. There is no anxiety about future school and tene- 
ment children. One pamphlet states persuasively, ‘from one 
bush or tree the desired forty can be obtained.” Would you like 
forty twigs taken from your lilac bush or forty terminal branches 
from any of your trees ? 
riefly, these are the main factors with which we must cope. 
Something may be done with the last class mentioned, but the 
druggist, ae and lumberman feel that they can not 
afford to listen to us; the real estate agent values graded lots 
above shaded ones, and will continue to do so as long as the 
former sel]. But most discouraging seems the larger class of 
the careless, the selfish and the ignorant who will continue to 
despoil our hedges, meadows and woodlands. ost of them 
will never see our pamphlets nor hear our lectures. How can 
we reach them? How can we influence them? A child who 
lives in a paved, walled street will pick and pull the flowers at 
last within his reach until he can hold no more. How can we 
control this ? 
Answer this with another question. How do we propose to 
reach, control and elevate the masses brought into our country 
daily? We shall find our answers identical —through our 
schools. But we have no to claim it here unless it be for 
the highest good of the chil Having shown that, it will not 
be too much to ask that all peas leaders should lend their 
aid to preserve the native plants. 
The wholesale, ruthless destruction, the intantaneous gratifica- 
tion of desire, the ignoring of other and of future rights have 
undoubted effects upon the characters of all yielding to them. 
A bird in the hand is not worth two in the bush. A broken, be- 
draggled flower, lying limp in the hand, is not worth the sturdy 
growing one, with its bright, upturned face, at which price it 
